After weeks of fevered anticipation, rumors, and speculation, the final line-up for the 2012 Sasquatch Festival was revealed in an appropriately festive Launch Party at the Neptune Theatre last night. Tickets go on sale next Saturday, February 11, at 10 a.m., with a two-day Live Nation pre-sale taking place the previous Wednesday, February 8. Go to sasquatchfestival.com/tickets for more info, and you best be quick on the draw: It’s sure to sell out.
The final line-up for the epic Memorial Day Festival’s tenth go-round in as many years upholds Sasquatch’s usual heady mix of indie rock, hip hop, folk, electronica, and soul. There’s pretty much something for everyone among the army of acts overrunning the Gorge for Sasquatch, and the crowd packing the Neptune burst into spontaneous applause as the final roster unspooled.
The Launch Party, hosted by Too Beautiful to Live’s Luke Burbank, preceded the grand unveiling with a pretty stellar evening of live music. Matthew Caws of Nada Surf opened up the party with a solo acoustic set heavily weighed by selections from his band’s newest full-length, The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy. The solo turn was his second of three live shows yesterday: Nada Surf played a gig at the Triple Door that afternoon, and the band zipped over to Ballard to play a sold-out Tractor Tavern show immediately after Caws left the Neptune stage. The Launch Party crowd was gifted a stripped-down, emotional set that framed Astonomy’s pop jewels in a sparsely-gorgeous backdrop, and Caws frequently brought to mind a less-caustic, more winsomely romantic Alex Chilton at several points (that’s a big compliment, incidentally).
Seattle hip hop crew The Physics followed up with the evening’s most party-centric stretch. The band’s crowd-stoking energy belied an almost mellow melodic and lyrical flow, aided immeasurably by swaths of funky guitar, lush backing vocals, and an assemblage of beats that favored subtly-flowing grooves over throw-down rhythms. Their sound should make for great hip-shaking and head-bobbing at Sasquatch (The Physics, as it turns out, will be playing the festival this year).
Closing act Junip come off as the shyest bunch of guys ever to step onto a rock stage, but the Swedish quintet sounded superlative in a live setting. Divorced from the detached sheen of their studio recordings, their blend of dreamy vocalizing, chiming guitars, warm analog synths, and insistent (real) drums and percussion wove a seriously hypnotic and oddly sensuous spell. It was so immersive, even the drunken blonde who bum-rushed the stage mid-set didn’t harsh the collective mellow.
So, yeah, the Launch Party live show sorta ruled, but the big pay-off remained the final announcement of the Sasquatch 2012 line-up. Below, please find the complete(-ish) roster of acts gracing the 2012 Sasquatch stage.
Music Acts:
Jack White
Beck
Bon Iver
Pretty Lights
The Shins
Tenacious D
Beirut
Girl Talk
The Roots
The Head and the Heart
Portlandia
Feist
Silversun Pickups
Metric
Explosions in the Sky
The Joy Formidable
Mogwai
Nero (DJ)
M. Ward
John Reilly and Friends
Childish Gambino
St. Vincent
The Civil Wars
Jamey Johnson
Little Dragon
Tune-Yards
Wild Flag
Blind Pilot
Wolfgang Gartner
Beats Antique
Apparat
Imelda May
The Sheepdogs
The Walkmen
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Mark Lanegan Band
Spiritualized
Blitzen Trapper
The Cave Singers
Shabazz Palaces
Fun.
Grouplove
Tycho
SBTRKT
STRFKR
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Deer Tick
Alabama Shakes
Imelda May
Dum Dum Girls
The Helio Sequence
Kurt Vile
Cloud Cult
Ben Howard
Here We Go Magic
Zola Jesus
The War on Drugs
Shearwater
Cass McCombs
Active Child
Trampled by Turtles
Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires
Araabmuzik
Starslinger
L.A. Riots
Com Truise
We are Augustines
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
I Break Horses
Walk the Moon
Dry the River
Allen Stone
Pickwick
Hey Marseilles
Gary Clark Jr.
Purity Ring
Yellow Ostrich
Nobody Beats the Drum
Electric Guest
Coeur de Pirate
Lord Huron
Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside
Beat Connection
The Sheepdogs
Hey Rosetta!
Said the Whale
Howlin Rain
Gardens and Villa
Felix Cartal
Awesome Tapes from Africa
Craft Spells
Vintage Trouble
Poor Moon
Black Whales
Gold Leaves
Greylag
THEESatisfaction
Dyme Def
Fresh Espresso
The Physics
Sol
Metal Chocolates
Grynch
Spac3man
Don’t Talk to the Cops
Scribes
Fatal Lucciauno
Fly Moon Royalty
Katie Kate
Comedy Acts:
Nick Kroll
John Mullaney
Todd Barry
Beardyman
Rob Delaney
Pete Holmes
Howard Kremer
and the proverbial more, more, more…